Comics For October 26, First Looks Nov 2

[dvandom]

                    Dave's Unspoilt Capsules and Awards
         The Week's Picks and Pans, plus Awards of Dubious Merit

Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups.  Recommendation does
not factor in price.  Not all books will have arrived in your area this week.
I dropped a lot of money today.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

First Looks:
     Every so often, I'll have the time (either while waiting for comics to
be sorted on Wednesday, or over the weekend) to pull out my PDA and type up
reviews of the stuff I read out of the First Looks pile.  Books I end up
buying will be moved down to the Capsules section on Wednesdays.  If I don't
give it a recommendation, I'm probably not buying it.
     If I read the First Looks on Wednesday, I won't include them in the next
week's review.  But if I don't get around to them until the weekend, I'll
include them in the next regular post.

November 2:

     Sentinel #1 (of 5): Marvel - Decent story from McKeever, and he does a
good job of filling in the backstory from the previous series...the "story so
far" page was redundant.  Vriens's art is rather Dreamwave-ish, even
factoring out the Udon colors.  A decent book, if next week is slow I may
pick it up (and forget to remove this sentence when I move this into current
Capsules).  There's a Franklin Richards backup (it's in every book this week,
it seems), so-so.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Captain Universe/Hulk #1: Marvel - Faerber turns in a decent tale here,
and I didn't feel lost for not having read the lead-ins in Amazing Fantasy.
It also helps that there's a brief history of the Uni-Power page.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Spider-Man House of M #5 (of 5): Marvel - Good, quiet ending that
doesn't really care what happens in the main HoM story.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Marvel Team-Up #14: Marvel - We break from the Titannus storyline for a
short crossover with an issue of Invincible that won't happen until next
year.  Gotta give plenty of lead time to get those pre-orders in :).  The
story's a bit heavy on exposition, but that's a GOOD thing in a crossover
like this...most MTU readers won't know Invincible, and a lot of Invincible
readers won't be up on Spidey's recent events.  Cory Walker does a good job
merging  classic Spidey look and Invincible's art style.   Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn


Capsules:
     Short, relatively spoiler-free reviews of books I actually bring home
(as opposed to reading in preview form in the shop or online).  If I get a
book late due to distributor foulups or whatever, I'll put it in the Missing
section.

     Flare #28: Heroic Publishing - Diamond still hasn't shipped this, but I
found it at a chain bookstore.  Anyway, the Bodysuit Fairy is back to plague
this title (that's where the penciling makes it clear that a character is
naked, but all the naughty bits are blocked by convenient limbs, energy
effects, smoke, etc...but then a couple of obviously-added-later lines and
some uncreative coloring put the character in a skintight bodysuit).  This
sort of editorial confusion annoyed me on the earlier version of this title,
and it annoys me now.  If you don't want even the implication of nudity, tell
the artist up front, or send it back to be redrawn.  The intervention of the
Bodysuit Fairy makes it look like the editor told the artist to sex it up,
yet thought that sexing it up meant showing ankles and panicked when the
final art came in.  The two main stories themselves are okay, although the
first one depends a bit much on readers familiar with the 90s series.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.99/$3.99Cn
     Gold Digger v3 #68: Antarctic Press - Well, the big Master Plan is laid
out this issue, and then there's a big honkin' fight scene with some embedded
flashbacks.  Reasonably satisfying.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.05Cn
     Conan #21: Dark Horse - Another delayed-shipment book for me.  The Tower
of the Elephant story adaptation continues, and it's a pretty good
adaptation, although the main combat scene is rather caption-heavy.  Yes, I
know the captions are likely taken verbatim from the original story, but it
feels like Nord isn't being trusted to tell the story visually.  Still,
recommended.  $2.99
     Teen Titans #28: DC - Gaaaah, more Liefeld.  Simone's story is fairly
good, but the taint of the Robgoblin drags it down.  Very mildly
recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     JLA #121: DC - The "who is the villain" teasing continues this issue,
and it's getting kinda annoying.  Aside from that, however, Harras turns in a
decent story focusing on issues of personal responsibility and guilt (or lack
thereof).  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     JSA Classified #4: DC - A bit less resolution than I would have liked,
as it goes To Be Continued In Infinite Crisis on us.  However, it has a
strong focus, and Johns builds well around that.  Plus, Connor's art
continues to be rather enjoyable.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #11: DC - As the issue before the Big Hoo-Rah,
this has the expected amount of revelations, advances and reverses.  It also
demonstrates pretty clearly how fragile the future utopia really is, by
showing a number of lynchpins that can be easily knocked out of place.  The
backup story is an interesting exercise in form.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn 
     Drax the Destroyer #2 (of 4): Marvel - Decent, although the snarky kid
is getting old very fast, and I don't mean she's aging.  Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Amazing Spider-Man #525: Marvel - It's the end of Peter David Month in
this lateral crossover.  Annoyingly, the "story so far" bit on page one gives
away info NOT spelled out at the end of MK Spider-Man #19.  Anyway, this
issue is mostly not about Spidey, but while it's a major tease on the actual
storyline, I enjoyed it.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Ultimate Secret #4 (of 4): Marvel - Well, it doesn't say it's a
miniseries on the cover, so the "To Be Concluded in Ultimate Extinction"
blurb at the end may just mean this storyline is done there and #5 will start
something new, but given Ellis's pace, it might as well be the end.  There's
some good scenes, and some props for Hawkeye.  Raney's art is good as well.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn 
     Hulk: Destruction #4 (of 4): Marvel - Well, it ends, but it doesn't
really resolve.  It's been a decent splicing of continuity, no doubt
justified in part by the House of M tinkering, but it feels more like a
beginning than an ending.  Which I wouldn't mind if I was confident that it
would be followed up on, but given Marvel editorial...who knows?  Still,
recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New Thunderbolts #14: Marvel - More clever fight scene stuff, and plenty
of strange bedfellows.  Worth a read.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn


Gone Missing:
     Stuff that came out some places this week and that I wanted to buy, but
couldn't find for whatever reason, so people don't have to email me asking
"Why didn't you review X?"  (If it's neither here nor in the section above,
though, feel free to ask, I might have forgotten about it!)

     Current list as of 10/26:

     Transformers Way of the Warrior TPB (which shows as "backordered" on
Diamond's system, meaning they're out) and Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder
Lizards.


Awards:

Best Book: New Thunderbolts #14, by a nose.

"The Ponce Of Darkness" Award to Flare #28

"Ask Isstvan" Award to Gold Digger v3 #68

"Conan Versus Spider, Man" Award to Conan #21

"Wait, D.I.C.E. Isn't Dead?" Award to the ads in some DC books

"Dad On Arrival" Award to Teen Titans #28

"For All the Girls I've Loved Before" Award to JLA #121

"Globular Clusters" Award to JSA Classified #4

"Dormir, Por Ventura Suen~ar" Award to Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #11

"I'm Gonna Beat Some Sense Into You" Award to Drax the Destroyer #2 (of 4)

"Deus Machinae" Award to Amazing Spider-Man #525 (apologies if I got the
     Latin wrong and "machinae" is not the genitive form of "machina")

"Jaffa!" Award to Ultimate Secret #4 (of 4)

"Mercy Delayed Is Mercy Denied" Award to Hulk: Destruction #4 (of 4)

"Three Hours Of Hot Girl-On-Girl Action" Award to New Thunderbolts #14

   Dave Van Domelen, "Do you remember...when Banner...had an affair...with your wife...?" (pause) "I have no earthly idea what you're talking about." (WHAM!) "Thought so. Stupid Nightmare." - Hulk and Abomination

Comments

[finback.livejournal.com]

What is Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards? The name intrigues.